"Sleeper"

She woke up before I killed her. I think I'll always remember her face, that look of confusion. No shock, no fear, just confusion, uncertainty as to what was going on.

I did it as quick and painlessly as possible. She still made a sobbing sound as the knife went in. If my soul has not been blackened by my years of war, it was certainly made so by that sound. I know I am in Hell, but I will certainly go to a worse one when I die, as punishment for the evil I have committed, necessary or not.

But, as usual, I have begun at the end.

It started at night when I had rested my bones for several hours. I woke to find Blair and Georgia still talking over something and I instructed both of them to sleep, while I watched over. Both said they weren't tired, but I could see that Georgia was filled with weariness. She hadn't slept since we rescued her. Perhaps she was afraid, so I tried to reassure her that we would still be here when she awoke, that she could sleep safely.

I was a fool, of course. Even in my old age, with many days behind me, I was a fool. A sad, pitiful fool.

She was asleep for around half an hour before she sat up unexpectedly. I turned to check on her and I saw that her eyes were still tightly closed. I called her name, but she did not answer. Instead, she stood up. She walked differently, as if she wasn't the one walking, but someone else. She began to walk down to the nearest road.

Blair went to stop her, but I held them back. "Let's find out where she's going," I said. "We'll follow her and protect her from any other players, but...let's just see how this plays out."

Blair looked at me like I was crazy. And perhaps I was. Letting a girl like that go sleepwalking just to satisfy my curiosity. But I did.

She walked and we followed. She slipped into one of the Pawn Shops and went up to the counter. We pretended to browse the aisles and listened in.

"Knife," she said to the club-faced men.

"What kind of knife would you like, Ms. Orr?" the club-faced man said.

"Hunting knife," she said. "Sharp." It was her voice, but it sounded strange, like it wasn't used to talking.

The club-faced man gave her a large knife that she could probably skin a wild animal with. "I have subtracted one hundred and forty points from your account, Ms. Orr," the club-faced man said.

Blair looked at me quizzically. If she had over a hundred and forty points, what was she doing with no food or supplies?

She left the Pawn Shop and we followed. I caught a glimpse of her face and her eyes were still closed, she was still sleeping. Something else was walking around, using her as a suit.

Pretty soon, she ran into another girl, a girl with a bandaged arm. The girl stopped and asked, "Do you know where the nearest hospital is? I need to get there pretty bad. I can trade you some food if you-"

Georgia looked at her with closed eyes and swung her new hunting knife. The girl's throat slit open and we could see the blood pour.

I couldn't stop Blair from rushing forward then. They grabbed Georgia's arm and tried to pull her away. She struggled with them, trying to slash downward, to cut them, to spill their blood.

I pried the knife from her fingers. That didn't stop her. She charged at us, kicking and hitting, like a demon, but we pinned her to the ground. Still she struggled, like there was a demon inside her bursting to get out.

Blair looked at me desperately. "Why did she do that?"

"You can tell it ain't her," I said. "She's still sleeping."

Blair looked back down at her. "Something's grabbed ahold of her. Something else's in the driver's seat while she's asleep."

"Yes," I said. "And we got no rope to tie her down, no points to buy rope."

"So what do we do?" Blair asked.

I held up the hunting knife, the one still red with a poor girl's blood on it. "No," Blair whispered.

"We can't leave her to kill more," I said. "We don't have any other choice." She was still struggling, so Blair had to hold her down as I readied the knife. Blair looked at Georgia with pity in his eyes as I silently prayed that he look away when I did the deed.

She woke up before I killed her. Just a second before the knife went in, she opened her eyes. She could see us. She looked so confused.

Afterwards, we didn't say anything. We carried her body to one of the hospitals, since we didn't have shovels to dig a proper grave. They said that they would take care of her. We didn't ask how.

Blair hasn't talked since then. I'm worried that they've reached the point - what we called the point of no return during the war. It's that moment when a person knows just how much death they are willing to take, and either accepts it or puts a bullet in their brain.

I wish to God that never happens.

"The Trail"

We've been following the Hanging Man's trail. He's fast - uncannily fast - but he still leaves a trail like everybody else. Moreso, actually, because I don't think he knows he's leaving it. Or maybe he does and he's just leading us into a trap.

But we're following him anyway. Because we're stupid and we want to kill him before he kills us. How we are to do that is something we're still working out.

We saw him attack another person today - a young girl, short with brown hair. She looked tired and worn out and she didn't even see the Hanging Man coming 'til it was too late and the noose was around her neck.

We charged like it was San Juan Hill and we were the Rough Riders. What idiots we were, me with my Mauser like a club and Blair with his electrical device (I still can't bring myself to call it a 'taser' - what a silly name).

We managed to get close enough so that Blair could cut the rope with their knife and free the young lady. The Hanging Man, on the other hand, was still fast enough to slip away. And he didn't even look angry or irritated. He looked delighted, as if he was glad that we were chasing him.

Before he slipped away, he tipped his hat towards me and said, "That's another noose you owe me. I aim to collect."

"The only noose I'll give you is the one I wrap around your neck," I said. It wasn't the best retort, but it seemed to work fine.

The Hanging Man just smiled and then he was gone.

I went back to where Blair was checking on the girl. She seemed fine, though a little malnourished. "Was he real?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "Real as anything here is."

"Oh," she said. "I thought this all be a dream."

"A might peculiar dream it would be," I said and introduced myself and Blair.

The young lady looked at us and then told us her name: Georgia, like the state.

By the way that Blair's offering food to her, I suspect we've found a new traveling companion. Which is fine by me - the more we've got, the better protection we have while we sleep.

"The Hanging Man"

I woke up with a noose around my neck.

I grabbed it with both hands to stop it cinching anymore and looked around. Couldn't see Blair, only the remains of the campsite.

Noose felt tight, I was losing air, had to get out. Mauser was at my feet, but I couldn't reach it.

The rope was taut - whoever was holding it had to be pretty close to keep it like that. I began seeing black spots and I knew if I didn't do anything soon, I wouldn't do anything again.

So I pushed my body down and flipped my legs upward and I felt my boot connect with something. The rope loosened and I pulled the noose off quickly, then scrambled to get my rifle.

I pulled it up just as the rope pulled back. There was a man holding the rope. He wore a loose brown duster and a Stetson. He coiled the rope around his arm and started swinging it, a grin on his face.

"Where's the kid?" I asked.

"You're faster than thought," he said. "Old man like you, thought it would be quick and easy."

"Where are they?" I asked. "What'd you do with them?"

"I think I prefer this however," the man said. "Face to face. Makes it all more...interesting."

"Yeah, well, I have a gun and you have a rope," I said, "so start talking or I start shooting."

He moved faster than I had ever seen a man move. He flung the rope and the nose caught the Mauser and before I knew it, it was out of my hands and on the ground.

The man smiled. "Back where I came from," he said, "they called me the Hanging Man. Well, they did before the Empress found me and after that...they didn't call me much of anything. They didn't say much of anything 'sides screams."

I had nothing. Without the Mauser, I was an old man with asthma and too many war wounds. I was nothing.

And then I saw the kid. Blair. They were walking back to the campsite - they must have gone to the bathroom or something. And now they were walking into a warzone.

The Hanging Man saw him, too, and his grin grew wider. He began to coil his rope again and I knew what he was going to do. He was going to kill Blair in front of me.

The kid saw us and me and the Hanging Man both sprang into action. He threw his rope and the noose went over Blair's neck. And I rushed forward, while he wasn't looking, grabbed my Mauser and fired.

The rope snapped.

The Hanging Man looked at me. "You are an interestin' fella," he said. "Good shot, too. I need to make a new noose now."

"No," I said. "Now I shoot you." My Mauser was still in my hands, my sweat-drenched hands, and I could feel my anger rising like steam.

"You sure?" he asked. "You sure you have enough bullets in that thing? How many did you fire yesterday? Or the day before? Perhaps, before I wrapped my noose around your neck, I emptied all the other shells. I just forgot the one already in there."

I pulled the trigger and nothing happened.

The Hanging Man smiled and tipped his hat. "See you later," he said and then ran off.

I checked on Blair and made sure they were alright, then checked the rest of my bullets. Nothing. He'd emptied the whole thing.

I was lucky. If that one bullet hadn't been there, if I had been a second slower...I don't even wish to imagine that. I have seen too many dead.

Too many.

"Addendum to Previous Conversation"

Before I went to sleep, Blair spoke. "It's not a secret. Why the Dog is after me." And they told me why.

"There's no shame in what you did," I said.

"I ain't ashamed," Blair said, a bit defensively. "Just sorta sad and angry."

"Both emotions that can serve you well," I said, "though eventually you'll learn to let them both go. No use being angry at the past for happening or sad at what was done. We can't walk backwards through a mirror, no matter how hard we try. So we learn to let go."

They still looked saddened by their story, so I went back to using my pack as a pillow.

Sleep, I'm sorry to say, did not come easily.

"A Conversation with Blair"

The other player's name is Blair, as it turned out, and they were running from the spade-masked man due to damaging some of the Game Master's property with a sort of electrical device that Edison would have been proud of.

I shared my jerky with the kid and I shared my story as well. I still cannot tell if they are a boy or girl, but I don't think it matters much and I am not inclined to ask, for it would seem to be intruding.

After I told them my story of how I got here, Blair told me that they were a "Runner" from what they called the "Black Dog." At this point, I must have looked enraptured in their story, since Blair stopped chewing and asked, "Have you heard of it before?" Their voice had a nice drawl to it.

"I've heard tell of a few tales," I said. "Even wrote one myself from a tale I heard. 'Stanley Fleming's Hallucination.' And I've heard why it comes after people." I let that sink into the silence. "Not that I care what secrets you keep. I have secrets of my own."

I could tell it was a subject not to be touched upon, but I had done so anyway and Blair looked at me with a sullen sadness. "We should travel together," I said changing the subject. "It will make things easier when we need rest. One of us can sleep, while the other stays alert and watches for any trouble."

Blair finished eating the jerky and asked, "How'd you know I won't just wait 'til your sleepin' and slit your throat?"

I laughed. "If that's the cause, then I deserve it. I consider myself a good judge of character and you seem like a person who only cuts a man's throat when they have no other choice. Am I right in that assumption?"

Blair shuffled their feet nervously. "Might be," they said.

"Good," I said. "Because I am actually a horrible judge of character and I would hate to die in my sleep."

That made them smile.

"The Pawn Shop"

As the darkness increased, I found two buildings.

The first turned out to be a hospital of some sort, operated by people who wore their hearts on their sleeves, as well as on their faces. When I walked through the door, they looked up at me and then went back to their work, which appeared to be patching up other players of this "game." It is good to know that the devil who brought us here wants us in good health.

One of the heart-faced workers came up to me and handed me a device. "For your asthma," she said.

"How did you know?" I asked.

"We knew as soon as you were here," the woman said. "We know the conditions of all the players. It is our duty."

I gave a short nod and looked at the device - it was small and strange, made partly of metal. The heart-faced woman showed me how one end goes into my mouth and if I pushed the other end, it would spray something into my lungs that would allow me to breath easier. As I said before: what wondrous technology.

I thanked her and then left. I could see another building nearby, this one in the shape of what looked like a pawn.

The building was busier than I realized at first. There were quite a lot of players inside - although none were fighting each other, which I deduced was because of the quite large men with spades on their faces that carried weapons around. Obviously, they were the soldiers for this "Game Master" and kept the peace inside the buildings, although I noticed several fights going on outside them of which they took no notice.

A few well-placed shots with the Mauser and those fights dispersed into the wind. And so I walked into the pawn-shaped building and found it, appropriately enough, to be a shop, where the proprietors had clubs on their faces.

I was sensing a theme.

The shop had quite a bit of food in it and supplies which I would need, though I had no idea what price anything was. They had bags of jerky and as I grabbed one, one of the club-faced men said to me, "That is two points."

I gave him a confused look and asked, "And how many points do I have at the moment?"

"Ninety-two," he said. "Each time you eliminate another player, you gain from eighty to one hundred points, which can be redeemed here."

"'Eliminate,'" I said. "You mean 'kill.'" The club-faced man nodded his head, as if this information did not bother him in the slightest. "We are rewarded for how many we kill." A nod, not even a glance, just a nod. "And those spade-faced men?"

"The Spades guard the Game Masters' property," the club-faced man said. "Anyone damaging the buildings or those who belong to the Game Master will be punished by the Spades."

So they were slaves. I had fought in a war to free them and here I was again in their presence. Was my life merely repeating in stranger ways?

I paid for my jerky and left and nearly bumped into another player. I hesitate to use 'he' or 'she,' for I honestly could not tell their gender, but they were in a hurry. Their skin was a dark olive color and their hair was shorn quite short. "I'm sorry," I said, but they weren't listening. Instead, they turned their head to look backwards and I knew that they had been running.

I saw the one they were running from: a man with a spade mask wielding a quite large curved knife.

I do not know why they wear masks. It was not bulletproof and after I set down the Mauser, I did not have a chance to ask him. Though it was good to know that even in my old age, I am still a good shot.

The kid still looked scared, as if he was frightened not only of the masked man, but of me as well. Perhaps he had been here long enough to become scared of everybody, no matter if they attacked or not. I well understood this. I knew enough not to step near him or try to pat his shoulder in comfort, for even that could be a sign of aggression.

So I merely raised up my bag and asked, "Do you like jerky?"

"The Last Moment"

I sat across from the dead body and sighed with resignation. This was to be more difficult than I thought.

Last night, I had resigned myself to stay out of this little competition. I am too old, I have lived too long and seen too many dead before me to be a "winner" of this game. I said that I will not be forced to kill, not for this unseen Game Master, not for anyone.

How quickly this notion was disabused of me.

This morning, I awoke to find myself looking at the edge of a knife. A man, wild-haired and wild-eyed, was holding it to my throat. He gestured to the remains of the campfire I had built. "Found you with the smoke," he said. "Lots of people don't know that. Makes it easier for us to find them."

"And who would 'us' be exactly?" I asked.

The man squinted, as if he didn't expect me to respond, or he expected a different respond. Perhaps pleading or screaming of some sort. "The hunters," he said, "the killers."

"And you are one of these hunters?" I asked.

"Yeah," the man said. He licked his lips and pulled his knife a little ways back. "I've already killed two and I only got here yesterday."

"That makes you a killer," I said, "not a hunter. Did you find them like you found me? Asleep and unprotected? Did you wake them just to taunt them, as you do with me? That is not hunting. That is as far from hunting as I can imagine."

"Shut up," the man said and brought his knife back. Unfortunately for him, I had already gotten a grip on my rifle, hidden underneath my blanket, and I brought it forward with a crack, hitting him across the temple.

He awoke several hours later to find the situations reversed.

"Did you mean to frighten me?" I asked him, as he took in his surroundings and his eyes widened in shock. "Son, I have seen more than you ever will. I have seen friends die and enemies live. I survived the Battle of Shiloh and it haunts me still. I have seen my sons die before I and that was probably the worst of all." I picked up my gun. "I have killed before. Men younger than you, men who were merely trying to serve their country, to do what they believed was right. You call yourself a hunter, but a hunter kills without taking the sadistic glee you took. A hunter would kill someone in their sleep to give them mercy, rather than wake them and give them terror." I loaded the rifle and aimed. The man started crying and blubbering, a most unmanly sight.

I stopped and set down my rifle again. "Do you swear?" I asked him. "If I do release you, do you swear you will not kill another soul here?"

He did. He swore on his mother's grave and upon all the graves of his family and friends. I did not want to kill him, so I almost believed him. Almost.

I went over to the supplies I had found on him. A large knife, serrated on one edge. A smaller pocket knife. Some small food in bar form (I took a bite of one and found it actually tasted particularly good). And a notebook. A diary.

It was the diary of a young girl. In the morning sunlight, I read of how she was tormented by shadows and how she fled them across the country. And then how she woke up to find herself here, in this Hellish landscape. The rest of the diary was splattered with blood.

I turned back to the man. He had calmed a bit, now thinking I was not going to kill him. I lifted my rifle again and asked, "Do you swear?"

He looked surprised when he died. Almost as if he didn't believe it was going to happen until the last second. We never believe it's going to happen, not until the last second. The last moment before dying.

This will be more difficult than I thought.